


Departure

by ghostwriter00797



Category: Stretch Armstrong and the Flex Fighters (Cartoon)
Genre: Angst, Flash Fic, Gen, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-12
Updated: 2018-03-12
Packaged: 2019-03-30 04:31:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 387
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13942647
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ghostwriter00797/pseuds/ghostwriter00797
Summary: A Tumblr prompt from @clean-prompts.Or: Where Jake leaves and Mark finds out before he does.





	Departure

**Author's Note:**

> So, this is on my Tumblr, but I decided to post it here too. Check out @clean-prompts on Tumblr if you'd like some curse-free and SFW prompt options, because they have some really great ones.  
> The Prompt:
> 
> “Stop! Stop! I can’t lose you too!”
> 
> “You already have.”

The silence between them stretches on. No sounds, nothing but the meeting of their eyes. One pair filled with shock and the other filled with betrayal.

“Jake?”

He hadn’t expected things to turn out this way, but here they were. His father in the doorway, frozen, and him halfway out the window, in costume, with his bag.

“Dad, I can explain-”

And then there is anger. Jake always knows when his father is angry. He is silent, so tense it seems like he might shatter at the slightest touch.

“No, I don’t think you can. You’re going to come back in here, we are going to sit down, and we’re going to call the police so you can explain exactly what you’ve been doing to them.”

Jake wants to, he really does, but all that will earn him is death. A painful, prolonged one with some experiments thrown in. Jonathan Rook almost killed him and his team the last time they trusted in authority, and he won’t make that mistake again.

“I can’t do that. I’m sorry.”

His voice is dead, emotionless, even as he breaks a little more inside. There will be no recovery from this. All of those late nights and missed phone calls, arguments and breaking glass have added up. He knows that they’ve finally hit the breaking point.

“Jake, as your father-”

The small laugh that comes out, bitter and dry, is enough to surprise him.

“You lost the right to call yourself that years ago.”

And as he slips out the window, ignoring the pleas to come back, he remembers.

_Looking out over the funeral, the casket and the mourners, he could feel the emptiness eating away at him. His father wouldn’t look at him, wouldn’t touch him, wouldn’t even speak to him, and Jake knows that it’s his fault she’s gone. If he hadn’t asked her to be there, on that day, she wouldn’t be dead. And he sees it in the months afterward, crumbling from guilt and grief, reaching out for a helping hand only to find that it was gone. All the while in his mind, screaming:_

“Stop! _Stop_! I can’t _lose you too_!”

_Only to look into his father’s blank face. Seeing those empty eyes and collapsing at bit more at every refusal Jake knew._

_You already have_.


End file.
